Making Sense of the Works of Amar Kanwar: A Phenomenological Perspective

Amar Kanwar (b. 1964) is an Indian video and installation artist whose stated concern is violence in the context of South Asia. This article will examine two works, A Season Outside (1997) and The Lightning Testimonies (2007), proposing that empathy, intersubjectivity and a search for harmony, influenced both by Gandhi and Buddhism, are key concepts relevant to their interpretation while the choice of images and the editing process convey an embodied, phenomenological experience that is coherent with these influences. In addition it will infer from some evidence given by the works and by the artist that this search for social and collective harmony also has a psychological and individual dimension. It will be argued that the latter constitutes the true power of the works as the spectator does not so much reflect upon the violence exercised by the various perpetrators and experienced by the victims in a rational and political manner, but, rather, witnesses the film-maker’s reaction to the experience of violence; a situation which Vivian Sobchack has characterised as phenomenological. Through this process the spectator can empathise with the narrator and reflect on the affects examined by the works: namely violence and loss, but also love and compassion.